I let a couple go by and then I slammed one out in the right field, and with that first hit my confidence came back to me.

From that time on I batted Fisher successfully, but the most of my hits were to the right field, owing to the fact that I could not at that time successfully gauge his delivery, which was much swifter than anything that I had ever been up against.
In after years a hit to right field was considered "the proper caper," and the man who could line a ball out in that direction at the proper time was looked upon as a most successful batsman.

It was to their ability in that line of hitting that the Bostons for many years owed their success in winning the championship, though it took some time for their rivals in the base-ball arena to catch on to that fact.
After that time I was informed by Mr.Waldo that I was "all right," and as you may imagine this assurance coming from his lips was a most welcome one, as it meant at that time a great deal to me, a fact that, young as I was, I thoroughly appreciated.
The make-up of the Rockford Club that season was as follows: Hastings, catcher; Fisher, pitcher; Fulmer, shortstop; Mack, first base; Addy, second base; Anson, third base; Ham, left fielder; Bird center fielder; and Stires, right fielder; Mayer, substitute.
This was a fairly strong organization for those days, and especially so when the fact is taken into consideration that Rockford was but a little country town then and the smallest place in size of any in the country that sup-ported a professional league team, and that the venture was never a paying one is scarcely to be wondered at.

To be sure, it was a good base-ball town of its size, but it was not large enough to support an expensive team, and for that reason it dropped out of the arena after the season of 1871 was over, it being unable to hold its players at the salaries that it could then afford to pay.
There were several changes in the make-up of the team before the season was over, but the names of the players as I have given them were those whose averages were turned in by the Official Scorer of the league at the end of the season, they having all, with one exception, played in twenty-five games, that exception being Fulmer, who participated in but sixteen.

I led the team that season both in batting and fielding, as is shown by the following table, a table by the way that is hardly as complete as the tables of these latter days: Players.